Review of "Love Stories" by artist Nichola Kinch

                Artist Nichola Kinch’s spring 2016 exhibition Love Stories is uncluttered and elegant, with the gallery emptied to clean, bare walls in order to showcase her work. In front of the gallery’s large windows overlooking the woods, Kinch has hung a forest of two-dimensional, identical, cut-out images of tree trunks reaching from floor to ceiling. When viewed from the front of the room the piece looks like a group of cloned shapes in a “photoshopped” image, but the paper thin trunks give the illusion of disappearing when one walks between them.

                Kinch’s zoetrope-like machine is displayed in front of the tree trunks. Modeled after old moving image toys used before the availability of film, the interactive piece requires an audience member to look through slots on one wheel while turning a hand crank in order to view a moving image of the phases of the moon. The piece is equally impressive when viewed from a distance, because the disc displaying the moon phases is in the open and illuminated from behind. Kinch explained that the images of the moons are created by carving into the disk to allow light to shine through the thinned areas, and that no images appear when the light is turned off.

                Kinch explained that the exhibition is meant to explore optical illusions and pre-photography technology, and she has captured an atmosphere of almost fairytale-like wonder with the illusions and glowing moons displayed in the space. “Riding the line between illusion and fantasy,” as she explained, her tree trunks are only pretending to be trees. Love Stories also incorporates the passage of time in many ways. In the gallery, light shining in through the windows changes throughout the day and can distort and conceal the illuminated moon phases at times. Kinch’s work is also modeled after old technology, but made with the use of new technology. A carving drill guided by a computer was used to create the disk of moon phases, and the tree trunks, displayed in pairing with the old technology of the moving image machine, are a reference to the iconic “cloning” of cut-out images made popular by modern Photoshop software. The moon phases also directly address time, as the turning of the hand crank models the passage of month, “[representing] time and illusion”, as Kinch explained.

                The opportunity to hear Kinch speak about her work was valuable in understanding her exhibition. Kinch described her work as having a hands-on quality that relates to her background in ceramics, and she shared her delight in creating layers of illusions in the gallery space. In this exhibition, there is no agenda or deeper meaning, but rather a place meant just to be explored and enjoyed. Many exhibitions offer complicated social critiques, requiring thought and research to understand properly, and Kinch's descriptions reinforce that this exhibition is meant for “play.”